99 Fun Facts About 12 Angry Men

Who directed 12 Angry Men, his feature debut?

Sidney Lumet had spent years directing television drama, and he rehearsed the cast for two weeks before filming began, so his first feature could be shot in about three.

Who wrote the screenplay of 12 Angry Men, adapting his own 1954 teleplay?

Reginald Rose also co-produced the film, and he and its star deferred their salaries to get it made.

Whose film beat 12 Angry Men to Best Picture?

David Lean's war epic The Bridge on the River Kwai dominated that year's Oscars, so the small jury-room drama went home with nothing.

Who plays Juror 8, the lone initial holdout, in 12 Angry Men?

Henry Fonda reportedly saw a recording of the live television play, wanted the part for himself, and co-produced the film, deferring his own salary.

Who plays the abrasive Juror 3, the last to change his vote, in 12 Angry Men?

Lee J. Cobb's juror stands alone for guilty at the end, and gives way only when he breaks down sobbing the words 'not guilty'.

Who plays Juror 4, the cool, analytical stockbroker, in 12 Angry Men?

E. G. Marshall's stockbroker holds out on the strength of the eyewitness across the street, and gives way at once when her testimony is shown to be doubtful.

Which actor plays Juror 7, the wisecracking salesman, in 12 Angry Men?

Jack Warden's salesman jokes his way through a murder case and changes his vote without giving a reason, which earns him a furious lecture from the immigrant juror.

Who plays Juror 10, the loud-mouthed bigot, in 12 Angry Men?

Ed Begley's garage owner is beaten without a word of argument: as his tirade goes on, the others get up one by one and turn their backs.

Who plays Juror 1, the jury foreman, in 12 Angry Men, three years before he was the detective in Psycho?

Martin Balsam's foreman runs every count around the table, and is one of the later jurors to change his own vote.

Which actor, later the voice of Piglet, plays the meek Juror 2 in 12 Angry Men?

John Fiedler's bank clerk is bullied into silence early on, but by the end he is standing up to the loudest men in the room.

Which future Odd Couple star plays Juror 5 in 12 Angry Men?

Jack Klugman's juror grew up in a slum like the defendant's, and takes it personally when another juror says such places breed criminals.

What is Juror 8's profession, mentioned in passing in 12 Angry Men?

An architect, he is the juror who asks to see a floor plan of the witness's flat, and uses it to test the old man's story.

Who plays the elderly Juror 9 in 12 Angry Men, a part he had already played in the 1954 TV version?

Joseph Sweeney was one of only two actors kept from the live broadcast, and his frail old juror casts the first vote to join the holdout.

In 12 Angry Men, the immigrant Juror 11, who speaks up for American democracy, works as what?

A watchmaker and a refugee from Europe, he reveres the right to disagree, and reminds the others that it is what makes their country strong.

What makes the jury room in 12 Angry Men so uncomfortable from the very start?

Stifling summer heat: it is 'the hottest day of the year', the men are wiping away sweat before they sit down, and tempers fray to match.

In 12 Angry Men, what undermines the old neighbour's claim that he saw the boy flee?

A bad leg: the old man drags one foot, and when Juror 8 re-enacts his walk to the door against a watch, the jury sees he could not have got there in the time he swore to.

In 12 Angry Men, whom is the teenage defendant accused of killing?

His father, who had beaten him regularly since he was five, a history the prosecution turns into his motive.

In 12 Angry Men, what kind of weapon was found at the murder scene, wiped of fingerprints?

A switchblade the prosecution treats as one of a kind, until Juror 8 produces an identical one he bought himself.

In 12 Angry Men, what sentence would a guilty verdict automatically carry?

Death in the electric chair is mandatory on a guilty verdict, the judge reminds them, so the jury has no lesser sentence to fall back on.

In 12 Angry Men, what does Juror 8 propose when he is still alone after the first arguments?

A secret ballot, with a promise: if all eleven still vote guilty he will give in, but one slip comes back 'not guilty', from the oldest man in the room.

In 12 Angry Men, the woman who says she saw the killing watched it through the windows of what?

A passing elevated train, whose roar, Juror 8 argues, would have drowned out the threat the old man downstairs swore he heard.

In 12 Angry Men, what late realisation about the woman across the street undoes her eyewitness testimony?

She wore glasses: the oldest juror spots on her nose the same marks the stockbroker's spectacles leave on his, and nobody wears glasses to bed.

In his final outburst in 12 Angry Men, Juror 3 tears up a photograph of himself with whom?

His son no longer speaks to him, and the fury he has aimed at the defendant collapses into tears once he sees who he is really angry with.

What do Jurors 8 and 9 exchange on the courthouse steps at the end of 12 Angry Men?

Their names: after a whole film as numbers, two of the twelve finally become people, then say goodbye and walk off in different directions.

On which CBS anthology series was the original Twelve Angry Men teleplay broadcast live in 1954?

Westinghouse Studio One aired it live in a one-hour slot, which forced cuts to the script that the film later put back.

Which future Patton director staged the live 1954 TV version of Twelve Angry Men?

Franklin J. Schaffner won an Emmy for it, as did its writer and its lead actor, and that success reportedly brought the play to a film star's notice.

What experience inspired the writer of 12 Angry Men to create the story?

Serving on a jury in a manslaughter case, by his own account, threw him into a furious argument in the jury room, and he saw at once what a setting it would make for a drama.

Why does Juror 8 vote 'not guilty' at the start of 12 Angry Men?

He wants to talk first: he says he doesn't know whether the boy did it, only that a life deserves more than a quick show of hands.

Which studio distributed 12 Angry Men?

United Artists booked the small film into theatres too big for it to fill, its star later complained, and it did poor business in America.

Where was 12 Angry Men filmed?

New York City: the cast rehearsed for two weeks and shot in about three at a studio there, with only the courthouse scenes at Foley Square filmed outside.

In 12 Angry Men, what about the fatal wound makes the jurors question the boy's guilt?

Angled downward, yet the juror raised in a slum explains that anyone practised with that weapon strikes upward, underhand, never down.

Who was the cinematographer of 12 Angry Men, fresh from an Oscar for On the Waterfront?

Boris Kaufman, brother of the Soviet film pioneer Dziga Vertov, was picked because the director thought his realist style suited so confined a story.

How does 12 Angry Men make its jury room feel smaller as the film goes on?

Longer lenses, lower angles: the director planned a 'lens plot' so the walls seem to close in, and by the end the camera looks up at the jurors in tight close-up.

In 12 Angry Men, what does Juror 3 shout at Juror 8?

"I'll kill him!" he roars as he lunges, and Juror 8 quietly asks whether he really means it: the case against the boy rests partly on just such a shouted threat.

In 12 Angry Men, why does the eldest juror think the old man downstairs may have stretched his testimony?

To feel important: he pictures a man in a torn jacket who has been nothing all his life and badly needs, just once, to be listened to.

12 Angry Men earned which three Academy Award nominations?

Best Picture, Director and Screenplay were its three nominations, and it lost every one of them to the same film.

Which French novelist took the screenplay Oscar that 12 Angry Men's writer lost, despite not having written the script?

Pierre Boulle wrote the original novel but not the script; its real authors were blacklisted, and the Academy gave them their Oscars only in 1984, after both had died.

12 Angry Men won its director which top festival prize in 1957?

The Berlin Golden Bear was part of a warm reception abroad that the film never matched at the American box office.

Who plays Juror 8 in the 1997 remake of 12 Angry Men?

Jack Lemmon led a cast that had George C. Scott as the angriest juror; the remake kept the plot but made the judge a woman and four of the jurors Black.

Which film did the AFI rank above 12 Angry Men as the greatest courtroom drama?

To Kill a Mockingbird took first place in 2008, with 12 Angry Men second: a high finish for a film that had flopped in American cinemas.

The writer of 12 Angry Men later created which TV legal drama?

The Defenders grew out of another of his live television plays, and it reunited him with the film's stockbroker juror, who starred as a defence lawyer.

Which Supreme Court justice said seeing 12 Angry Men in college pushed her toward a legal career?

Sonia Sotomayor said an immigrant juror's speech in praise of American justice moved her, yet as a judge she told juries not to copy the film's guesswork.

Who directed the 1997 television remake of 12 Angry Men?

William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, shot it for the cable channel Showtime from a script updated by the original's own writer.

Which Russian director's 2007 adaptation of 12 Angry Men, titled 12, put a Chechen teenager on trial in Moscow?

Nikita Mikhalkov also plays the jury foreman himself, and his version was nominated for the foreign-language Oscar.

Why is the wisecracking Juror 7 so eager for a quick verdict in 12 Angry Men?

He has baseball tickets for that evening, and later switches his vote just to get out, until another juror demands he say what he really believes.

How does the Chinese remake 12 Citizens assemble its jury?

A mock trial at a law school supplies them: Chinese courts have no American-style jury, so twelve ordinary men act out a Western verdict that binds nobody.

Which Nickelodeon cartoon parodied 12 Angry Men in a 1996 episode called "False Alarm"?

Hey Arnold! puts Eugene before a student jury for pulling the fire alarm, with Arnold the lone holdout who turns out to be right.

Which Comedy Central series aired a half-hour parody of 12 Angry Men in 2015?

Inside Amy Schumer gave a whole episode to it, copying the staging, costumes and props almost shot for shot to send up the abuse aimed at famous women.

In 12 Angry Men, what must the jury's verdict be, whichever way it goes?

Unanimous: that is why one stubborn 'not guilty' is enough to keep all twelve men locked in the room until somebody changes his mind.

Which actor gave away his own Golden Globe on stage to the Juror 8 of the 1997 12 Angry Men remake?

Ving Rhames had just won for playing a boxing promoter when he called his fellow nominee up from the audience and insisted he keep the trophy. The older man tried to return it and was refused.

In the original 12 Angry Men film, Juror 7 wants a quick vote because he holds tickets to what?

A baseball game between the Yankees and Cleveland is all he can think about. In the 1954 TV original his tickets were for the theater instead.

Which Hitchcock film cast the foreman of 12 Angry Men as a detective stabbed on a staircase?

Psycho gave him the doomed investigator Arbogast, who climbs the stairs of the Bates house and is attacked at the top. He later won an Oscar for A Thousand Clowns.

Which film beat 12 Angry Men in every Oscar category it was nominated for?

The Bridge on the River Kwai swept seven Oscars that night and left the jury-room drama with nothing. The jury film's own star had not even been nominated for his performance.

In 12 Angry Men, where did Juror 8 buy his exact copy of the supposedly unique murder weapon?

A pawnshop two blocks from the boy's home sold it to him for six dollars the night before. He plants it in the table beside the court's exhibit, stunning the room.

What is the profession of Juror 8, the quiet hero who forces a debate in 12 Angry Men?

An architect with three children, he says from the start that he does not know whether the boy did it, only that the case deserves an hour's discussion.

In a real court, what would Juror 8's own outside research in 12 Angry Men most likely have caused?

A mistrial: real jurors are told to judge only the evidence heard in court, so buying a matching knife and carrying it into the jury room would count as misconduct.

The writer of 12 Angry Men said almost all his 1950s work was really about which senator?

Joseph McCarthy's era made standing up for your rights risky, and the story of one juror who will not be stampeded by eleven others was the writer's answer to it.

Which animated sitcom called its season 3 tribute to 12 Angry Men "Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men"?

King of the Hill shut Hank and his friends in a focus group for a new lawnmower, with Cotton barging in as an uninvited guest.

Which Some Like It Hot star played Juror 8 in the 1997 TV remake of 12 Angry Men?

Jack Lemmon earned Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for the part, playing opposite Hume Cronyn as the elderly Juror 9.

Which star, the first actor to refuse an Oscar, played raging Juror 3 in the 1997 12 Angry Men remake?

George C. Scott won an Emmy for the role. He had declined his Best Actor Oscar for Patton, the first performer ever to turn the award down.

Where does the accused teenager in 12 Angry Men claim to have been at the time of the murder?

At the movies, he says, yet an hour later he could not recall the titles or the stars. Juror 8 then shows that calm Juror 4 cannot fully remember a double bill he saw a few nights before.

Which legal standard, spelled out at the start of 12 Angry Men, becomes Juror 8's whole argument?

Reasonable doubt is all he ever claims: he never says the boy is innocent, only that nobody in the room can be sure enough to condemn him.

Whichever way it goes, what must the jury's decision be before the men of 12 Angry Men can go home?

Unanimous either way: all twelve must agree to convict or to acquit, which is why one stubborn vote can hold eleven men in a sweltering room.

In 12 Angry Men, what stops the old man downstairs from reaching his door in fifteen seconds?

He is lame after a stroke, so Juror 8 paces out the route at the old man's speed while Juror 2 times him: 41 seconds, almost three times too long.

In 12 Angry Men, Juror 3 wrecks his own argument by shouting what at Juror 8?

A threat to his life is just what the old man downstairs claimed to overhear, and Juror 3 had insisted nobody says such a thing without meaning it. Nobody in the room thinks he means it.

The star who plays Juror 8 in 12 Angry Men won his Best Actor Oscar for which final film?

On Golden Pond paired him with Katharine Hepburn and his own daughter. He was too ill to collect the award and died less than five months later.

The actor who plays Juror 5 in 12 Angry Men later became which crime-solving TV title character?

Quincy was a Los Angeles forensic pathologist who kept turning detective, a part that brought him four Emmy nominations across eight seasons.

Which teen detective series flipped 12 Angry Men so that a lone holdout pushes the jury to convict?

Veronica Mars is called for jury duty in a 2005 episode where eleven jurors want to clear the privileged defendants, until a single holdout turns the room towards conviction.

Twelve Angry Men, written in 1954, took fifty years to reach which famous theater district?

Broadway finally saw it in a Roundabout Theatre Company staging led by Boyd Gaines; London's West End had beaten New York to it by forty years.

The 1997 TV remake of 12 Angry Men kept its all-male jury but cast a woman in which role?

The judge is played by Mary McDonnell, who sends the twelve men out to deliberate. The remake also made four of the jurors Black.

What does Juror 8 promise if the secret ballot in 12 Angry Men shows eleven guilty votes?

Give in at once: he gambles that one other man shares his unease, sits the ballot out, and wins by a single slip of paper.

In the original 12 Angry Men film, lone holdout Juror 8 wears a suit of which color?

White sets him apart at a glance: he is first seen as a pale figure alone at the window, lost in thought, while the others settle at the table.

In 12 Angry Men, what does elderly Juror 9 believe the old man downstairs craved when he testified?

Attention, after a lifetime of being overlooked: Juror 9 spots the split seam at his shoulder and sees a man who may have talked himself into a story that made people take notice at last.

Which animated sitcom put its town mayor on trial in an episode called "12 and a Half Angry Men"?

Family Guy made the dog, Brian, the lone holdout on a jury ready to convict Mayor Adam West of murder. The 2013 episode was written as a homage to the film.

Juror 11, the European immigrant who reveres American justice in 12 Angry Men, follows which trade?

A watchmaker and naturalized American, he gives the speech on democracy that a future Supreme Court justice said drew her to the law.

Juror 7, the wisecracking salesman of 12 Angry Men, spent the previous year selling which product?

Marmalade is the unlikely line of this gum-chewing, flashily dressed joker, who treats the whole trial as time stolen from his evening.

What did the director of 12 Angry Men ask his twelve actors to wear for the shoot?

Their own clothes, because he wanted no artificiality: he told the cast in rehearsal that the film would be nothing but them and their behavior.

The actor who plays Juror 3 in 12 Angry Men first created which tragic Arthur Miller role on stage?

Willy Loman, Arthur Miller's worn-out travelling salesman, was his in the original 1949 staging. Miller called him the greatest dramatic actor he ever saw.

The writer of 12 Angry Men created which 1960s legal drama starring the actor who plays Juror 4?

The Defenders ran on CBS from 1961 to 1965, spun off from another of his live TV plays. Its star won two Emmys as attorney Lawrence Preston.

Which survival drama titled an episode "12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis" in a nod to 12 Angry Men?

Yellowjackets has the stranded team put their own coach on trial for burning down their cabin, with teammates serving as judge, lawyers and jury.

Which part of 12 Angry Men did its cinematographer call the longest single take of his career?

The opening scene in the jury room runs seven unbroken minutes and 18 separate movements, introducing all twelve men as they bump into one another and make small talk.

What does meek Juror 2 keep offering the other men during the tensest arguments of 12 Angry Men?

Cough drops come out of his pocket whenever tempers rise. The bank clerk also has the sharpest memory at the table, recalling a film title that defeats Juror 4.

What does Juror 4, the stockbroker of 12 Angry Men, claim that he never does?

Sweat finally beads on his forehead only when Juror 8 quizzes him about a film he saw a few nights earlier and his memory lets him down.

Which country's film academy named the star of 12 Angry Men its Best Foreign Actor for Juror 8?

Britain gave him the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor. At the Golden Globes he and the actor behind Juror 3 were both nominated, and neither won.

After the final vote in 12 Angry Men, what does Juror 8 fetch for the broken Juror 3?

His jacket: Juror 8 lifts it from the closet and helps the sobbing man into it, a wordless peace offering after an afternoon of furious argument.

Which British comedian's BBC series, co-starring Sid James, spoofed 12 Angry Men in 1959?

Tony Hancock turned the jury room into farce in Hancock's Half Hour, in an October 1959 episode scripted by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Which leading British playwright directed a 1996 Twelve Angry Men that transferred to the West End?

Harold Pinter, a future Nobel laureate, directed the revival, more than thirty years after the play first reached London.

The 2009 documentary 12 Angry Lebanese follows a staging of Twelve Angry Men by a cast living where?

In a prison: the cast were inmates of Beirut's Roumieh jail, filmed by director Zeina Daccache, and the result won the audience award at the Dubai film festival.

A 1973 TV version of 12 Angry Men aired in which country, 22 years before it brought back jury trials?

Spain saw it as Doce hombres sin piedad, meaning twelve men without mercy, in the state broadcaster's drama slot Estudio 1.

In the 1997 remake of 12 Angry Men, bigoted Juror 10 is rewritten as a former member of which group?

Nation of Islam membership is part of the new back story for the character, a carwash owner played by Mykelti Williamson whose tirade is aimed at Hispanic immigrants.

Which future Three's Company landlord played the foreman in the 1954 TV version of 12 Angry Men?

Norman Fell, later landlord Stanley Roper, led the jury in the hour-long live broadcast. Only two of its twelve actors went on to the film.

Juror 12, the ad man of 12 Angry Men, doodles packaging ideas for what kind of product?

A box of cereal called Rice Pops fills his notepad while the others argue, and his doodles are still lying on the table when the room finally empties.

Which future director of Patton and Planet of the Apes staged the 1954 TV original of 12 Angry Men?

Franklin Schaffner won one of the broadcast's Emmys for his direction, sixteen years before Patton brought him the Oscar.

The cinematographer of 12 Angry Men was the younger brother of which noted Soviet film-maker?

Dziga Vertov stayed in the Soviet Union making avant-garde films while his younger brother studied in Paris, shot films in France and reached America in the 1940s.

The actor who plays bigoted Juror 10 in 12 Angry Men won an Oscar for which Tennessee Williams film?

Sweet Bird of Youth won him Best Supporting Actor as Tom 'Boss' Finley. Before films he was a busy radio actor whose parts included Charlie Chan.

Which out-of-town team does slum-born Juror 5 support in the original 12 Angry Men film?

Baltimore Orioles loyalty earns him the nickname Baltimore in the jury room. In the 1997 remake the character follows the Milwaukee Brewers instead.

Which single word did the director of 12 Angry Men say sums up the theme of the film?

Listen, he said, was the whole theme. He told the cast in rehearsal that it was no tract for or against juries, just a study of human behavior.

Which cable channel first aired the 1997 remake of 12 Angry Men?

Showtime premiered it in August 1997 as an MGM Television film, with the original writer returning to update his own script.

In 12 Angry Men, Juror 11 asks why a guilty boy would risk going where, hours after the crime?

To the apartment, three hours later and straight into the arms of the police: an odd move for someone careful enough to wipe the weapon clean.